CATWALK VIEW/DEIRDRE McQUILLAN:Paris fashion week opened yesterday with a stellar Dior winter collection revisiting the l960s from the designer who makes frocks rock, John Galliano.
It has been a buoyant year for the historic house owned by the luxury group LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy), which has just reported a turnover of €12 billion for the first nine months of 2007, up 13 per cent on the same period the previous year. Sales at Dior have quadrupled in the last decade under Galliano's creative leadership.
So it was no surprise that this was a collection full of optimism and opulence, with demure A-line skirt suits in exuberant fruity fucshia, raspberry and lime worn with flamboyant cowboy hats. A new bag called the 61 accompanied the line-up, evoking the spirit of l961 when the house's declaration was "Never forget the woman". The show's dolly birds aped their youthful Sixties counterparts with huge bouffant, backcombed hair, kohl-rimmed eyes and precariously high heels making them look curiously elfin and fragile.
But ultimately this was a collection about saleable luxury and upscale glamour, the slim tweed dress trimmed with patent, the demure swing coat in strawberry suede, the jacket edged with rhinestones. For evening there were at least 20 "grand slam" silk dresses in paintbox shades, with a blinding array of jewellery and embroidery. Nothing could be a greater contrast than Isabel Marant's show which was defiantly downbeat, grey and grim with boxy jackets, saggy pants and padded black mini-skirts all worn with slouchy high suede boots. Is this the way forward? Marant is the favoured designer of the city's jeunesse doree, but her throwaway mix of plaid shirt dresses, tartan trousers and Mongolian fur waistcoats was repetitive and lacked ideas.
Sharon Wauchob's lovely collection in the Palais de Tokyo, one of her best to date, showed the independent Irish designer at her most romantic, controlled and confident. "I have really concentrated on the tailoring and on the special details in the dresses," she told The Irish Times. The strictness of the tailoring showed in the almost Victorian emphasis on highly worked neck details in the suits, many trimmed with goat hair and feathers for added luxuriance. Best were the swinging concertina pleat dresses in smokey shades of grey or chocolate where detailed draping and gathering never looked superfluous.